


Wartime Progress

by YamatoMyTomato (KinoKahn)



Series: Kakayama Week 2015 [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: KakaYama - Freeform, KakaYama Week 2015, M/M, Nohara Rin Lives, Non-graphic descriptions of injuries, POW Yamato, severe injury tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinoKahn/pseuds/YamatoMyTomato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi receives a message in the middle of the war: "they found him, I have him."  New fears take the place of those receding.</p>
<p>Kakayama Week 2015 - Day Five: Reunion</p>
<p>Note: this fic ignores canon in regards to how and when Yamato was recovered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wartime Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Rin is present in nearly all my fics, because I prefer to think that she's alive and that Kakashi has more friends than just Guy and Yamato. This fic is no exception.
> 
> Note: if you're wondering where all the other days and fics are, I apologize. I got Animal Crossing: New Leaf this week. But don't worry, I'm still gonna finish and post all the days I've missed! 
> 
> Kakayama Week 2015 - Day Five: Reunion

Kakashi saw the messenger hawk, soaring through the last streaks of sunlight, long before he realized it was for him. Information had been passed between troops with the help of the Yamanaka clan, but now Ino was the only one left and that method was essentially crippled. So they were back to hawks, with occasional interludes of Sai sending ink mice that tug at your pant leg and nibble your toes until you drop a scroll onto the ground for them to spill across, the ink splashing into whatever message you needed to know.

But the hawks, they weren’t too common in the front lines. They relied on sight and the smoke was too thick. They were only sent for emergencies, and Kakashi could feel his stomach drop to his knees as it began to soar down towards him.

He automatically extended his arm, but hoped that the hawk was actually aiming for one of the kids behind him. Besides, one of the kunoichi had said earlier she was hoping for a letter from her mom.

But no, the hawk’s claws sunk into the sleeve of his shirt, biting through the fabric and into his skin, ruffling her feathers and clicking her beak at him. She held out a leg and continued clicking until Kakashi took the note wrapped there. Then, with one unceremonious push off his arm, the hawk was up and flying through the smoke again.

Kakashi didn’t want to read the note. There was a good chance it was something like, _Kakashi - Naruto got stabbed in the face, war is over, we lost._ Or _Sakura healed too many people and died from chakra exhaustion. Sai watched his friends die and had a mental breakdown._ Really, there were dozens of things the note could say, and Kakashi couldn’t really imagine it saying anything good. But he was the commander of the entire 3rd division, and he couldn’t exactly refuse to read communications just because he didn’t feel like it.

Kakashi unfurled the note and immediately recognized the handwriting. Rin. She was back at the medic camp, safe from the action but still much closer to it than she wanted to be. The note itself was on one of the official medic summonings forms.

_Kakashi Hatake: summoned to the medic camp immediately for treatment of exhaustion. Additional note: they found him, I have him - Rin_

Kakashi blinked at the note a few times, and he was tempted to use his sharingan to make sure he had read it right. There was no other “him” the note could be referring to. Something like a knotted snake, curled up in his ribcage and pressing against every organ there, loosened.

Kakashi looked up and scanned the area. He wasn’t directly in the front lines, not at the moment. He was standing back on a once-grassy hill, watching men and women and kids die, trying to strategize and figure out some way to deal with all of these suddenly-appearing blobs of white and resurrecting legendary ninjas.

He already felt guilty for standing back this far from the fight. He couldn’t go to the medic tents. He couldn’t leave these kids, he couldn’t abandon this responsibility, he couldn’t go to him.

A force came down hard on his shoulder and it took Kakashi a dazed second to realize it was Guy, and that he had already taken the note from Kakashi’s hand.

“Doctor’s order,” Guy said. His brows were drawn and he squinted at the note.

Kakashi shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s just Rin, she doesn’t understand-”

Guy’s expression didn’t change. “You do have exhaustion. You didn’t hear me approach you, and you didn’t react to me hitting your shoulder. You need to go. I can take care of it, I can hold things down for until the morning, and I’ll send for you if things get dire. Go get some rest.”

He pressed the note against Kakashi’s chest. Kakashi didn’t take it. “What if I refuse?”

Guy grinned. “Then I’ll just pick you up and carry you there.” And then Guy walked away, towards the front line, cracking the joints of his fingers and back. The paper fluttered down to Kakashi’s feet.

Lee raced after him, Sai trailing behind carrying his massive scroll. Sai didn’t glance back at Kakashi. He kept his eyes trained on the carnage of war in front of him.

Kakashi picked up the crumpled note and read it once more. _They found him, I have him - Rin._ She didn’t say he was dead. But she didn’t say he’s okay, he’s going to be okay either.

Kakashi folded the paper and tucked it into his flak jacket, then started walking away from the fighting and away from the war.

 

It took the better part of two hours to walk to the medic tents. He could have run, but his shins felt like glass and his feet lead. He walked slowly, waving at those he knew as he passed but not stopping until he reached the edges of the medic tents.

He didn’t know which one was Rin’s. The note gave no directions, and everything looked the same in the early-evening darkness. There were medical ninjas rushing between tents, their feet splashing in the mud. It had started raining, but Kakashi hadn’t noticed when or where during his walk.

Two medics walked past carrying a woman on a stretcher. She had kunai embedded in her stomach and her arm was bent in a direction it wasn’t intended to. She was crying.

Between the two ninjas carrying the stretcher was a third medic, holding her once-white coat aloft to keep the rain off the injured woman. Rin.

She didn’t notice Kakashi, she was too intent on talking to the crying woman and walking in time with the stretcher. Kakashi turned, his sandals squelching in the mud and dirt settling between his toes, and followed Rin into the nearest tent.

He stood just inside the tent flap and watched while Rin directed the transfer of the patient from the stretcher to a gurney, and then started hooking up IV fluids while another medic was yanking the kunai out and starting treatment. The warm green light of medicinal jutsu filled the tent, and finally Rin glanced to the side and saw Kakashi.

“I’ll be right back,” Rin told one of the guys who had been carrying the stretcher, and she walked past Kakashi out the tent. He stuck his hands in his pockets and followed her.

Rin strode into the maze of tents and temporary buildings without glancing over her shoulder at him. “I’ve heard that you’ve been working yourself too hard again, so please don’t think I was making that part of the summons up.”

Kakashi nodded although she couldn’t see him. She just kept walking and trusted that he was following.

“He’s in bad shape, I’m not going to lie. We’ve done a couple procedures for internal injuries and he pulled through them okay. He’s asleep right now. Try not to wake him,” Rin said. She stopped in front of a tent and turned to face Kakashi, her arms folded over her chest.

She had bags under her eyes, and her hair pinned back with a mess of bobby pins. Her white doctor’s coat was dingy grey with mud staining the bottom hem, and blood streaked across everywhere else.

“This war is hell,” Kakashi said.

Rin pulled the flap open. “Wars always are.” She grimaced for a moment before continuing, “I called you from the front because I knew you’d want to know he was alive, but also because I assumed you need rest. It looks like I was right. There are chairs and blankets in there. If you’d rather have a bed to yourself, the tent behind this one is unoccupied. Feel free to use it.”

Kakashi stepped into the tent and Rin let the flap fall back into place behind him.

 

It was dark, and Kakashi stared at the ground while his eyes adjusted. The floor of the tent was simply packed-down dirt. Kakashi could see the footprints of various medics patterned across the dust. There were dingy rugs and mats thrown haphazard around the room.

When Kakashi looked up from the floor, he realized that there was a curtain hanging down in the back of the tent, concealing the bed from the rest of the make-shift hospital room. There was no sign of movement, but if Kakashi closed his eyes and focused, he could hear breathing.

The breaths were familiar, shallow, and slow. But they were steady. The knot that had been curling in his ribs again loosened.

The dirt and dust muffled the sounds of Kakashi’s steps as he moved across the room. The curtain crinkled and metal pole fastening it to the ceiling rang. The breathing continued without pause.

Tenzou was curled on the bed with his back to Kakashi, sheet and a threadbare brown blanket covering him from the ribs down. He was shirtless, and a patchwork of gauze and bandages spread across his shoulders. His skin was paler, somehow thinner. Kakashi could see the knobs of his spine, the maps of his veins. His hair was greasy, dirty, caked with blood and dirt, but it was still the same chestnut brown.  
Kakashi took a step closer and picked up the clipboard pinned to the headboard.

> _dehydration_  
>  anemia  
>  persistent cough  
>  concussion  
>  cracked skull  
>  cracked left eyesocket  
>  possible irreparable deafness in left ear; punctured ear drum  
>  broken tooth  
>  dislocated jaw  
>  strained vocal chords  
>  broken collarbone  
>  dislocated left shoulder  
>  dislocated right shoulder  
>  broken right wrist  
>  dislocated right thumb  & ring finger  
>  bruised ribs  
>  sprained ribs  
>  cracked ribs  
>  ulcers  
>  urinary tract infection  
> 

Kakashi stopped reading. Rin had crossed out the issues that had been taken care of in purple pen. The majority of the list still needed crossing out. Kakashi put the clipboard on the stand next to the head of the bed. There was an untouched jug of water and upturned glass on the table, accompanied by the metal frame Tenzou wore around his face.

Kakashi picked the frame up. It was speckled with blood and dirt, the Hidden Leaf insignia scratched and scuffed, and the metal twisted and dented.

Kakashi set it back down on the stand and looked back to Tenzou.

His back was at the edge of the bed, Kakashi realized. He was sleeping like how he did at home, with one arm spread out across the empty space of the bed, where Kakashi should be.

Kakashi watched Tenzou’s back rise and fall with his breaths before he moved to the other side of the bed, to the convenient and warm Kakashi-shaped space.

Tenzou’s face was bruised, the brow over his left eye swollen. His lips were dry and cracked, and his cheek covered in hair-thin scratches and scrapes. One of his arms was tucked under the pillow, and the other was spread out across the sheets.

Kakashi reached out and ran his index finger along Tenzou’s outstretched arm, tracing the sunken veins. Warm. His skin was rough and dry, covered in scabs and dirt, but still warm. Kakashi’s finger ran the length of Tenzou’s arm until he reached his palm. Calloused, but warm and still soft. Tenzou’s hand twitched and Kakashi pulled away. Always ticklish when sleepy.

Kakashi sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled his sandals off. They were caked in mud and blood and falling apart at the seams. He tossed them into a corner of the room and wiggled his toes until the majority of the dried mud flaked off.

He tossed his flak jacket and headband into the same corner, then pulled his mask down before lifting Tenzou’s limp arm and laying down on the bed. He scooted backwards until his back was against Tenzou’s chest and let Tenzou’s arm go so it dropped over him, a benevolent weight across his side.

Kakashi closed his eyes and let Tenzou’s warmth wash over him. He could feel the rise and fall of Tenzou’s chest and the steady thrumming of Tenzou’s heart through his back. Tenzou’s arm shifted, curling against Kakashi’s stomach and pulling him closer. Then Tenzou sighed, a gust of warm sour air against the back of Kakashi’s neck. Unsurprisingly, no one had thought to help Tenzou brush his teeth.

Another sigh and sleepy mumble, then Tezou murmured Kakashi’s name into his hair. Kakashi could feel all the air in his lungs leave at once, and it took a moment to get it back. Tenzou shifted again, and then with more steadiness to his voice, said, “Kakashi?”

Kakashi hummed in response and pressed his palm to the back of Tenzou’s hand.

“Kakashi?” Tenzou asked a third time. Kakashi could feel Tenzou moving behind him, probably trying to sit up.

“It’s me, go back to sleep,” Kakashi said.

Tenzou settled against Kakashi’s back again, and his arm pulled Kakashi into a weak and shaky hug. “Rin kept saying she would find you. Said I kept asking for you when they first brought me in.”

Kakashi nodded, his hair brushing against Tenzou’s face.

“I don’t remember that, to be honest. I don’t remember a lot of things. How long was I…” Tenzou’s voice broke and trailed off.

Kakashi pressed his palm against Tenzou’s hand again. “About three months.”

Tenzou buried his face in the back of Kakashi’s head, his breath shifting through Kakashi’s greasy dirty hair and blowing against the skin of Kakashi’s scalp.

“How are the kids?” he asked.

“Fine, as far as I know. Alive,” Kakashi assured him. Tenzou sighed.

“Can we just go back to sleep?” Tenzou asked. Kakashi could feel the strain and fragility in his voice.

“I think that sounds like a great idea,” Kakashi replied, and he closed his eyes and squeezed Tenzou’s hand and let Tenzou sob into the nape of his neck.


End file.
